Down Syndrome boy watches over dead father for week

A nine-year-old boy with Down Syndrome kept watch over the body of his dead British father for nearly a week until police discovered the body in East Pattaya.

Officers and Sawang Boriboon Thammasathan officers were called to the Soi Khao Talo home of Robert Sorenson, 36, April 26. Police broke through the locked door to find Sorenson’s decomposing body in a back room and a shocked Luke Attiroot Soronson nearby.

Officers are unsure whether the developmentally challenged boy was aware his father was dead. Sorenson had been dead five to seven days, officials estimated.

Neighbor Weawdao Stromberg, 27, called police after hearing the boy crying and detecting the foul odor. She said Sorenson had been raising the boy since his mother left several years ago.

Pol. Lt. Col. Vinai Horhin stated that from initial examination of the body, he believes that Robert must have died from an illness or due to suffocation because of the heat and there is no air conditioning within the house leading to shock and eventually death.

The body was sent to the Forensic Institute to determine the cause of death while the child was taken in by a foreign neighbor.

This article was published in the Pattaya Mail newspaper on Friday May 2, 2014 (Vol. XXII No. 18).